Directors Criticisms and Praise About Other Directors

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1. Francois Truffaut on Michelangelo Antonioni:
“Antonioni is the only important director I have nothing good to say about. He bores me; he’s so solemn and humorless.”

2. Ingmar Bergman on Michelangelo Antonioni:
“Fellini, Kurosawa, and Bunuel move in the same field as Tarkovsky. Antonioni was on his way, but expired, suffocated by his own tediousness.”
“He’s done two masterpieces, you don’t have to bother with the rest. One is Blow-Up (1966), which I’ve seen many times, and the other is La Notte (1961), also a wonderful film, although that’s mostly because of the young Jeanne Moreau. In my collection I have a copy of Il Grido (1957) and damn what a boring movie it is. So devilishly sad, I mean. You know, Antonioni never really learned the trade. He concentrated on single images, never realizing that film is a rhythmic flow of images, a movement. Sure, there are brilliant moments in his films. But I don’t feel anything for L’Avventura (1960), for example. Only indifference. I never understood why Antonioni was so incredibly applauded. And I thought his muse Monica Vitti was a terrible actress.”

3. Ingmar Berman on Orson Welles:
“For me he’s just a hoax. It’s empty. It’s not interesting. It’s dead.Citizen Kane, which I have a copy of — is all the critics’ darling, always at the top of every poll taken, but I think it’s a total bore. Above all, the performances are worthless. The amount of respect that movie’s got is absolutely unbelievable.”
“I’ve never liked Welles as an actor, because he’s not really an actor. In Hollywood you have two categories, you talk about actors and personalities. Welles was an enormous personality, but when he plays Othello, everything goes down the drain, you see, that’s when he croaks. In my eyes he’s an infinitely overrated filmmaker”

4. Ingmar Bergman on Jean-Luc Godard:
“I’ve never gotten anything out of his movies. They have felt constructed, faux intellectual, and completely dead. Cinematographically uninteresting and infinitely boring. Godard is a ****ing bore. He’s made his films for the critics. One of the movies,Masculin, Féminin, was shot here in Sweden. It was mind-numbingly boring.”

5. Orson Welles on Jean-Luc Godard:
“His gifts as a director are enormous. I just can’t take him very seriously as a thinker — and that’s where we seem to differ, because he does. His message is what he cares about these days, and, like most movie messages, it could be written on the head of a pin.”

6. Werner Herzog on Jean-Luc Godard:

“Someone like Jean-Luc Godard is for me intellectual counterfeit money when compared to a good kung-fu film.”

7. Jean-Luc Godard on Quentin Tarantino:
“Tarantino named his production company after one of my films. He’d have done better to give me some money.”

8. Harmony Korine on Quentin Tarantino:
“Quentin Tarantino seems to be too concerned with other films. I mean, about appropriating other movies, like in a blender. I think it’s, like, really funny at the time I’m seeing it, but then, I don’t know, there’s a void there. Some of the references are flat, just pop culture.”

9. Nick Broomfield on Quentin Tarantino:
“It’s like watching a schoolboy’s fantasy of violence and sex, which normally Quentin Tarantino would be wanking alone to in his bedroom while this mother is making his baked beans downstairs. Only this time he’s got Harvey Weinstein behind him and it’s on at a million screens.”

13. Clint Eastwood on Spike Lee:
“A guy like him should shut his face.”

14. Jacques Rivette on Stanley Kubrick:
“Kubrick is a machine, a mutant, a Martian. He has no human feeling whatsoever. But it’s great when the machine films other machines, as in2001.”

15. Jacques Rivette on James Cameron (and Steven Spielberg):
“Cameron isn’t evil, he’s not an ******* like Spielberg. He wants to be the new De Mille. Unfortunately, he can’t direct his way out of a paper bag. “

16. Jean-Luc Godard on Steven Spielberg:
“I don’t know him personally. I don’t think his films are very good.”

17. Alex Cox on Steven Spielberg:
“Spielberg isn’t a filmmaker, he’s a confectioner.”

18. Tim Burton on Kevin Smith (after Smith jokingly accused Burton of stealing the ending of Planet of the Apes from a Smith comic book):
“Anyone who knows me knows I would never read a comic book. And I would especially never read anything created by Kevin Smith.”

20. Kevin Smith on Paul Thomas Anderson (specifically,Magnolia):
“I’ll never watch it again, but I will keep it. I’ll keep it right on my desk, as a constant reminder that a bloated sense of self-importance is the most unattractive quality in a person or their work.”

21. David Gordon Green on Kevin Smith:
“He kind of created a Special Olympics for film. They just kind of lowered the standard. I’m sure their parents are proud; it’s just nothing I care to buy a ticket for.”

22. Vincent Gallo on Spike Jonze:
“He’s the biggest fraud out there. If you bring him to a party he’s the least interesting person at the party, he’s the person who doesn’t know anything. He’s the person who doesn’t say anything funny, interesting, intelligent… He’s a pig piece of ****.”

23. Vincent Gallo on Martin Scorsese:
“I wouldn’t work for Martin Scorsese for $10 million. He hasn’t made a good film in 25 years. I would never work with an egomaniac has-been.”

24. Vincent Gallo on Sofia (and Francis Ford) Coppola:
“Sofia Coppola likes any guy who has what she wants. If she wants to be a photographer she’ll **** a photographer. If she wants to be a filmmaker, she’ll **** a filmmaker. She’s a parasite just like her fat, pig father was.”

27. David Cronenberg on M. Night Shymalan:
“I HATE that guy! Next question.”

28. Alan Parker on Peter Greenaway (specifically The Draughtsman’s Contact):
“A load of posturing poo-poo.”

29. Ken Russell on Sir Richard Attenborough:
“Sir Richard (‘I’m-going-to-attack-the-Establishment-fifty-years-after-it’s-dead’) Attenborough is guilty of caricature, a sense of righteous self-satisfaction, and repetition which all undermine the impact of the film.”

30. Uwe Boll on Michael Bay:
“I’m not a ****ing retard like Michael Bay.”

Others:

Luchino Visconti

[on Luis Bunuel; ’76] I think today there are too many directors taking themselves seriously; the only one capable of saying anything really new and interesting is Luis Bunuel. He’s a very great director.

[on Ingmar Bergman] I don’t begin to share his way of seeing things any more than his obsessions. All the same I find him interesting. And his universe is much stranger yet than any Japanese filmmaker.

[on Michelangelo Antonioni] It seems that boredom is one of the great discoveries of our time. If so, there’s no question but that he must be considered a pioneer.


Andrei Tarkovsky

“There are few people of genius in the cinema; look at Bresson, Mizoguchi, Dovzhenko, Paradjanov, Bunuel: not one of them could be confused with anyone else. An artist of that calibre follows one straight line, albeit at great cost; not without weakness or even, indeed, occasionally being farfetched; but always in the name of the one idea, the one conception.”

“What is Bresson’s genre? He doesn’t have one. Bresson is Bresson. He is a genre in himself. Antonioni, Fellini, Bergman, Kurosawa, Dovzhenko, Vigo, Mizoguchi, Bunuel – each is identified with himself. The very concept of genre is as cold as the tomb. And is Chaplin – comedy? No: he is Chaplin, pure and simple; a unique phenomenon, never to be repeated.”

“There are two basic categories of film directors. One consists of those who seek to imitate the world in which they live, the other of those who seek to create their own world. The second category contains the poets of cinema, Bresson, Dovzenko, Mizoguchi, Bergman, Buñuel and Kurosawa, the cinema’s most important names. The work of these film-makers is difficult to distribute: it reflects their inner aspirations, and this always runs counter to public taste. This does not mean that the film-makers don’t want to be understood by their audience. But rather that they themselves try to pick up on and understand the inner feelings of the audience.”


https://www.goldderby.com/forum/movi...her-directors/



Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
I don't know if you've heard it, but there's a word of praise, a compliment from Mizoguchi to Ozu that's very beautiful, and that relates to this. One day, a journalist asked Mizoguchi if he liked his colleague Ozu's films, and he replied: ‘Of course.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Because I think that what he does is much more difficult and mysterious than what I do.' That’s an enormous compliment because you know better than I that Mizoguchi is considered a poetic and mysterious director, and Ozu a very down to earth, very realistic director. It's Mizoguchi who says: what that gentleman does with these doors is more difficult than what I'm doing. There are the doors, once again! It's beautiful because Mizoguchi is the director of mysteries, of secrets, while Ozu is the director of doors, or windows, of entries and exits, of marriage, of very basic things. It's as if Mizoguchi said: I who spin mystery with all of this fog, I'm nothing next to a fellow who films doors and back streets. That, that's much more difficult and mysterious. That's a statement of genius. That, to me, is the greatest compliment that one director can make to another, and the most beautiful definition of documentary, of fiction, realism, and the imagination.
__________________
Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.



14. Jacques Rivette on Stanley Kubrick:
“Kubrick is a machine, a mutant, a Martian. He has no human feeling whatsoever. But it’s great when the machine films other machines, as in2001.”

17. Alex Cox on Steven Spielberg:
“Spielberg isn’t a filmmaker, he’s a confectioner.”

20. Kevin Smith on Paul Thomas Anderson (specifically,Magnolia):
“I’ll never watch it again, but I will keep it. I’ll keep it right on my desk, as a constant reminder that a bloated sense of self-importance is the most unattractive quality in a person or their work.”

Love it

Hell I may even have to check out a couple of Mr Bergmans films now. If nothing else I couldn't stand Citizen Kane either. Maybe this artsy stuff isn't all stale ale after all..



I actually agree with Orson Welles on what he said of Ingmar Bergman:
I don’t condemn that very northern, very Protestant world of artists like Bergman; it’s just not where I live. The Sweden I like to visit is a lot of fun. But Bergman’s Sweden always reminds me of something Henry James said about Ibsen’s Norway—that it was full of “the odor of spiritual paraffin.” How I sympathize with that! I share neither Bergman’s interests nor his obsessions. He’s far more foreign to me than the Japanese.



Always fun to see directors getting into beef with each other.

Tarkovsky's diary is fun when it comes to seeing his thoughts on film


Terminator: “The brutality and low acting skills are unfortunate, but as a vision of the future and the relation between man and his destiny, the film is pushing the frontier of cinema as an art.”

He also really liked The Exorcist from what I remember.



I actually agree with Orson Welles on what he said of Ingmar Bergman:

Well he might be right. I haven't seen any of Bergmans films and know nothing about them. I'm norwegian though, so a bit curious about what Henry James meant about that. Maybe it would be more clear to me if I was more familiar with Bergmans films and obsessions. Or Ibsen

All I know is that in my experience with movies from the nordic contries, a good one is either made in Denmark or by Aki Kaurismäki.



I've had the deep misfortune of briefly watching parts of a John Wayne movie and I can't say I'm surprised with his attitude, especially in the first half of that interview. Some things do indeed get better I guess.



matt72582's Avatar
Please Quote/Tag Or I'll Miss Your Responses
Love it

Hell I may even have to check out a couple of Mr Bergmans films now. If nothing else I couldn't stand Citizen Kane either. Maybe this artsy stuff isn't all stale ale after all..
Bergman is great. I'd recommend
-The Seventh Seal
-Wild Strawberries
-Persona


I also love Aki Kaurismaki (especially "Shadows in Paradise), but especially anything Matti Pellonnpaa was in.



__________________
"Фильм призван вызвать духовную волну, а не взращивать идолопоклонников."



Kurosawa's letter to Bergman shows fine for me



Bergman is great. I'd recommend
-The Seventh Seal
-Wild Strawberries
-Persona


I also love Aki Kaurismaki (especially "Shadows in Paradise), but especially anything Matti Pellonnpaa was in.

Thanks for the Bergman recommendations Will check them out

Yeah Kaurismaki is certainly something else. I'm not very cultivated when it comes to movies, and usually I just don't have the patience required for enjoying "artsy" stuff. Interestingly though, for how slow and low beat his films can be, with practically no dialog to speak of, for some reason I don't find them empty or boring. His humour is so suddle that for all I know it might not be intended from his side 100% of the time, but I actually find Kaurismaki pretty funny.

Apparantly he's not particularly popular in Finland. I guess he captures and exaggerates something about that stoic finnish vibe that perhaps many people in Finland aren't all that comfortable admitting to. I don't know, I'm rambling. Anyway, I like him



It must be my computer. It's old and dying.
My computer is way older than yours and works fine. Yours is dying because it was never fixed, not because it's not brand new. The idea that a computer has to be new to be good is, 'consumerism gone amuck.'